P WJV.'O.' 



AN 



A.TE 



DKLIVEKED 



AT THE SECOND COMMEMORATION 



PILGRIMS OF MARYLAND, 



Philadelphia, May 10th, im. 



BY 

WM. GEO. READ, L.L.D 

OF BALTIMORE. 



I'HILADELPHIA: 

I'UINIKI) HV M. flTHlAN, 61 N. SECOND STREET. 

1843. 



AN 




® IE A M ® M 

AT THE SECOND COMMEMORATION^ ^ 



PILGRIMS OF MARYLAND, 



Philadelphia, May 10th, 1841. 



BY 

WM. GEO. READ, L.L.D 

OF BALTIMORE. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

PRINTED BY M. FITHIAN, 61 H. SECOND STREET. 

1843. 



- * \ 






^ -v , 



I'ls 



*»\ 






Philadelphia, May 11, 1843. 
Dear Sir, 

We have the honor to enclose an attested copy of the 

proceedings of a meeting, held at the Chinese Museum last evening* 

Permit us to add our individual request, that you will comply 

with the solicitations of the large and respectable assemblage 

whom you gratified by your learned and eloquent discourse. 

Very Respectfully, 

Your obedient servants, 

ARCH'D. RANDALL, ) 

JAMES CAMPBELL, V Committee. 

JOS. R. CHANDLER, ) 

To Wm. Geo. Read, Esq., L. L. D. 
Baltimore. 

Hall of the Chinese Museum, 
Cel. Lan. Pil. Md. 

After the Oration delivered by Wm. Geo. Read, L.L.D., at the 
Chinese Hall, on Wednesday, May 10, 1843, the immense meeting 
was called to order by Dr. J. G. Nancrede — the Honorable Archi- 
bald Randall was called to the Chair, and Joseph R. Chandler ap- 
pointed Secretary. 

The meeting was then addressed with much eloquence by Wil- 
liam A. Stokes, Esq., as an introduction to the following Resolu- 
tions. 

Resolved, That the warm and hearty thanks of this meeting are 
justly due, and are hereby tendered to Wm. Geo. Read, Esq., for 
the eloquent and learned Oration which he has just pronounced. 

Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed by the Chair 
to communicate these Resolutions to Mr. Read, and to request a 
copy of his Oration for publication. 

Resolved, That the Chairman be added to the Committee. 

The Resolutions were adopted by acclamation, and the following 
gentlemen appointed on the Committee, viz. Wm. A. Stokes, Esq., 
Joseph R. Chandler, Esq., Hon. James Campbell. 

ARCHIBALD RANDALL, Chairman. 

Jos. R. Chandler, Secretary. 



/ 



Baltimore, May 14th, 1843. 
Gentlemen^, 

Your kind letter, enclosing a copy of the two very 
flattering Resolutions, adopted at the Chinese Hall, on the 10th 
inst., has just been received. 

I hasten to place my manuscript at your disposal, fearing only 
lest the enthusiasm which prompted your generous celebration, 
may have invested my remarks with an evanescent interest, which 
will be sought in vain on a cooler perusal. 

Permit me, to my acknowledgments of the graceful courtesy 
with which you have discharged your commission, to add a faint 
expression of my gratitude, for the abounding and elegant hospi- 
tality which honored my recent visit to your noble city, and has 
forever domesticated my heart in Philadelphia. 
I am with great respect, 

Your obedient servant, 

WILL. GEO. READ. 
Hon. Arch'd. Randall, ^ 
Hon. James Campbell, > Committee. 
Jos. R. Chandler, Esq. ) 



ORATION, 



Have you ever, my respected friends, approached 
some glorious instrument of melody — some " solemn 
harp" or witching lyre — and laid a hesitating hand upon 
the strings — half afraid, lest your unskilled touch might 
mar their concord — half ashamed, lest the rude notes 
you wakened might jar upon some fine tuned ear ? 

Such were the feelings, with which I ventured to ac- 
cept the flattering invitation, which has placed me before 
you. For I knew that, in attempting to give voice, in 
Philadelphia, to the sentiments appropriate to this so- 
lemnity, I must address myself to minds and hearts ac- 
customed to the master touches of art and genius, and I 
trembled, lest what I might intend for harmony would 
sound as discord to you. And though, perhaps, 1 had a 
right to hope to excite some interest by my theme, how 
could I forget, that the gifted spirit, who first effectually 
roused old Maryland herself to a just appreciation of 
her ancient renown, had made her honored story " like 
household words" in his own proud city,* and that noth- 
ing remains for others, but to follow him, with steps un- 
equal, through the tangled path of antiquarian research, 
o\er which he has scattered, with liberal hand, his "fairy 
favors" — heaping the lap of Wisdom, with the " apples 
of gold in net-work of silver," and hanging the richest 
pearls of eloquence in Beauty's ear ? 

* The allusion is to the interest excited by the admirable lecture of Wm. 
A. Stokes, Esq., on " the Pilgrims of Maryland." 



Still 1 have ventured to come ; for, adverting to the 
sacred purpose to which the avails of this celebration are 
devoted, I thought that the curiosity, which sometimes 
attaches to an undeserving stranger, might possibly gath- 
er a more abundant offering, than the familiar attractions 
of domestic merit ; and I have come the more confident- 
ly, believing, that, much as I ought to dread, from the 
critical taste of this enlightened and polished community, 
1 had more to hope, from its proverbial hospitality. 

We celebrate, indeed, the very festival of hospitality ; 
for we are convened in commemoration of the origin of 
a State, whose founders, received themselves as brothers 
by the kindly savage, threw open their doors in turn to 
the friendless wanderer ; asking no title to their offices 
of love, but the common fraternity of sorrow. 

Our anniversary, it is true, is of arbitrary adoption, ori- 
ginally selected for the convenience of a pilgrimage to the 
long deserted site of the first settlement of Maryland. But 
it seems to have been chosen well ; at a season when the 
rigors and desolation of winter are forgotten in the ver- 
nal burst of universal joy ; when the sunny air is vocal 
with music; when animal and vegetable life teem with 
renovated energies ; and the voice of a God of love, 
whispering in 

"the sweet South, 
That breathes upon the banks of violets, 
Stealing and giving odors," 

diffuses fresh hopes throughout creation. And was not 
this a proper season, to celebrate that glorious Spring- 
time in the human heart, whose beauties, first bursting 
into being on the sacred soil of old St. Mary's, gave pro- 
mise that the blighting blast of religious intolerance, that 
so long had "frozen" up "the genial currents of the 
soul," had sunk with flagging wing to his boreal caves for- 



ever ? It was chosen well ! in this blessed "month of Ma- 
ry," which the tasteful genius of Christianity, arranging 
the circling year into one graceful and majestic drama of 
the everlastino; scheme of salvation, has consecrated to 
especial meditation on the gentle virtues of Her, in whose 
bosom, and upon whose bosom " the begotten from all 
eternity" first felt the tender throb of earthly affection ! 
and such was a proper season, to commemorate the un- 
exampled decree by temporal power, that man should no 
longer measure his love to God, by the intensity of hatred 
for his brother ! 

But whatever fanciful circumstances we may cast 
around their memory, the incidents of Maryland's first 
existence derive no lustre from them. Radiant with 
their own light, too clear and bright for th'3 illusions or 
decorations of fiction, there they shine forever, through 
the dark history of human perversity — like the fixed stars 
unchanging from season to season — sparks of the divi- 
nity that illumes and warms the universe ! 

Is this the language of exaggeration ? Unroll your 
maps, and detail to me the origin of the various commu- 
nities that have occupied our globe. How many can 
you show me whose beginning was not stained by vio- 
lence or fraud ? I speak not of those oriental despo- 
tisms, whose only authentic history is written in the de- 
solation left by their marching millions, or on those stu- 
pendous monuments of pride, that only tyranny could 
plan, or slavery's overstrained sinews execute. — But can 
you find one among the pirates and robbers of early 
Greece, whose dazzling genius blinds us to their faults, 
as to spots upon the son ? Can you find one among the 
Eastern or Northern barbarians, who came down on the 
Everlasting City as " the scourge of God," or the ruth- 
less conquerors who ravaged in succession our national 



8 

isles ! Alas ! " the trail ol the serpent is over," the fair- 
est earthly scenes, and would you behold a nation found- 
ed on faith, and hope, and charity, you must seek it 
among the planters of Maryland, and the few that have 
been directed by their principles, or have followed their 
example. 

It was early in March 1634, when two vessels entered 
the majestic '' river of the Swans."* Above them waved 
the red cross flag, that " for a thousand years has braved 
the battle and the storm." They bore a band of exiles, 
who had left their native shores in search of unmolested 
altars beneath our western trees. Groaning under a 
worse than Egyptian bondage, they had sought, like the 
children of Israel, to go into the wilderness to sacrifice 
to the God of their fathers. And they had obtained 
permission ; for " the Lord had seen the affliction of his 
people and had heard their cry: and knowing their sor- 
row, had come down to deliver them out of the hands of 
their oppressors ; and to bring them out of that land into 
a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and 
honey."t 

So, too, their deliverance came through one who had 
been familiar in the halls of the king. George Calvert, 
the first Lord Baltimore, on whose "considerate brows" 
the statesman's oak, and warrior's laurel, wreathe in 
graceful harmony with the bays and the passion flower 
— " a man 

" In a dark age against example good, 
Against allurement, custom and a world 
Offended, fearless of reproach or scorn 
Or violence" 

— had stopped short, in a political career of transcen- 

* The meaning of the Indian name Patowomohe. See the "Maid of the 
Doe," Canto iv. § 22. 
f Exodus iii. v. 7, 8. 



9 

dent brilliancy, to meditate on the awful concerns of fu- 
turity, and renounced, at the hazard of every earthly 
interest, the dominant creed in which he had been edu- 
cated, for the proscribed communion of the ancient 
Church. But so little of the zealot was blended with his 
deliberate action, and such sweet consideration for the 
supposed errors or weakness of others tempered his un- 
compromising conscientiousness, that he enjoyed the rare 
felicity of retaining the regard of his separated brethren, 
and their testimony to the sincerity of a course which 
might have seemed to cast censure on their own. 

Yet intimately versed, as he was, in the settled policy 
of the government, and aware of the terrible interests 
that then warred, and have warred for ages, against li- 
berty of conscience in Great Britain, and admonished 
by the strong good sense that eminently regulated his va- 
ried gifts, not to rely on a merely personal exemption 
from their affliction, with whom he had cast in his lot for 
time and eternity, he resolved to improve his present 
tranquillity, by providing an asylum in the new world, for 
himself and his brethren of the persecution. 

While, therefore, he yet retained the capricious favor 
of his sovereign, he obtained, in guerdon of his long and 
faithful services, a grant of the ample and favored region, 
which, pursuing the direction of the Potomac, from its 
remotest source to the bay of Delaware, included within 
its northern limit the beautiful site of your own magnifi- 
cent city — a country of which we may gratefully aifhrm, 
in the glowing language of Smith, who first explored it, 
" heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a place 
" for man's habitation ; where are mountaines, hils, 
" plaines, valleyes, rivers and brookes all running most 
" pleasantly into a faire bay, compassed with fruitful and 
" delightsome land." 

2 



10 

But he lived only to delineate, on the charter of his in- 
tended colony, the traits of his far-seeing mind and ge- 
nerous heart ; and was taken up, we may trust, to their 
blessed company " of whom the world was not worthy." 

Yet his mantle fell on a deserving wearer ; and his son 
Cecelius, with the calm steadiness of his father's ener- 
getic benevolence, though less of his personal activity, 
proceeded to execute the project the latter had only de- 
signed. At immense expense, out of his still uninvaded 
private fortune, he collected a company of about two 
hundred emigrants from England and Ireland — principal- 
ly persons of former consideration, but reduced, by the 
penal laws against Catholics, to comparative destitution. 

They were provided with the means of subsistence 
and defence, and what might be useful in the settlement 
of their colony, and the civilization of the Indians. But 
the paternal care of the Proprietary reached beyond 
their temporal wants, and those of the untutored children 
ol nature who possessed his titular domain. Four per- 
sons were induced to attend the expedition, whose names 
would be synonimous, to many who know them not, with 
all of evil that malevolence can feign, or ignorant cre- 
dulity believe; but to such as delight in realities and not 
in fables, expressive of the devoted charity, the unwearied 
patience, the graceful courtesy, the ripe erudition, the 
enlightened faith and fervent piety, the heroic, daring and 
indefatigable perseverance, that are bound up in the 
hearts of the Jesuit Fathers — men who have already 
executed — while others are consulting how to begin ; who 
thrust in the sickle — while others are deliberating where 
to plant ; and who, regardless of every thing but the great 
end to which they have devoted their existence, are as 
ready to water with their blood the precious seeds of Re- 
ligion and Virtue, as to preside over the rejoicings of the 
harvest-home. 



11 

There was joy and sadness in the " rich conceit" that 
named this little scjiiadron the Ark and the Dove ! It 
told of their escape from the wreck of a glorious world, 
wasted by a moral deluge, that had swept away life and 
fortune, and the jewelled ties of kindred, and the escut- 
cheons of ancient honors, and the boundless accumula- 
tions of by-gone charity, and the beautiful creations of 
inimitable art, and the land-marks of old opinion and 
prescriptive right. But it told, too, of a new country, 
beyond the waves, still fresh and green from the great 
primaeval inundation, where they should "increase and 
multiply and fill the earth," transmitting the traditions of 
the olden time to the countless generations that should 
swarm on the prolific bosom of that renovated world ! 
and it spoke of peace to the simple savage, who as yet 
had only learned to dread and detest the white man, and 
was to be reclaimed and christianized by examples of 
justice, of self-denial, and of love. 

The first trials of their pilgrimage were over. They 
had escaped the " perils from robbers, the perils from 
their own countrymen, the perils in the sea,'' and their 
new home swelled up before their longing eyes, in its il- 
limitable extent and alluring verdure ! How did they 
take possession ? Were they " mad for land ?" As the 
half-clad natives clustered on every jutting point and 
" coigne of vantage," to gaze alarmed and wondering at 
the portentous spectacle, did our exiles rush on them 
with the murderous enginery of European war ? Did 
they butcher their braves, insult their women, burn their 
wigwams, and seize or spoil their corn ? Such was the 
greeting for which previous experience had prepared 
these hapless children of the wild ! And, therefore, did 
they light in haste their beacon fires, and hurry to the 
shore with their weak artillery, if possibly the courage 



12 

of despair might yet avail against the terrible warriors 
of the winged canoes from the sea ! 

But different scenes awaited tliem. For, as Noah, de- 
scending with his family from the ark, "built an altar 
unto the Lord, and taking of all cattle and fowls that 
were clean, offered holocausts upon the altar," so these 
wanderers for Christ sanctified their landing with that 
" unbloody sacrifice" prefigured by Melchisedech, fore- 
told by Malachias, and by which the Saviour of the world 
had commanded his Apostles to " shew forth" the tre- 
mendous expiation on Calvary, till his second coming ! 
Great indeed must have been their " awful joy !'' What 
though England's plundered and mutilated temples no 
longer threw their sculptured glories around them, nor 
ranged choirs responsive to pealing organ intoned the 
sacred songs ? What though their knees were on the 
sod, and their foreheads bared to the blast ? They felt 
that they were free ! free as the wind that waved the 
lights upon their rustic altar, and swept away the cloud- 
ing of their incense I No human law proclaimed it trea- 
son, here, to obey what they believed the behests of an 
Eternal king ! Here they might approach that " living 
bread," which "he that eateth shall live forever," nor 
shrink, with nature's instinctive shudder, lest some Judas 
might be kneeling beside them, who had bargained for 
their blood with the torturer. Toil and privation were 
before them, but sweetened by the certainty that their 
fruit should not be snatched away, for the support of a 
worship they disapproved, or to punish their conscien- 
tious recusancy. Rude was the shelter where high-born 
lovehness and delicacy must now repose ! but her dove- 
like slumbers should no more be startled from their balmy 
nest, by the midnight intrusion of official insolence, and 
vulgar bigotry, that, in the name of Jesus, would tear 



13 

from her hosom the memorial of his dying love ! Yes, 
they were free ! free as the joyful glances they threw to 
the blue arch above them, and as they bowed down be- 
fore the "clean oblation," that shall be offered "from the 
rising to the going down of the sun," their grateful pray- 
ers ascended, like the " sweet savour" of the patriarchal 
victims, and " the lifting up of their hands," was " as 
the evening sacrifice." 

But was there no homage to the spirit of the world ? 
No becoming burst of national pride ? No salutary ma- 
nifestation of superior power t No planting of England's 
haughty banner, amid the ^' salvo shots^^ of her cannon, 
and the shouts of her hardy tars ? Alas for men, to 
whose simplicity the " vain pomp and glory" of this 
transitory state were not all in all ! It was the anniver- 
sary of that happy day, when Gabriel announced to the 
loveliest and lowliest of the daufjhters of Eve, that she 
was " blessed among women ;" for that 

The holy " Spirit that doth prefer 

*' Before all temples th' upright heart and pure, 

" who from the first 

" Was present, and, with mighty wings outspread, 
" Dove-like, sat brooding on the vast abyss, 
•' And made it pregnant," — 

should overshadow her ! and, from her virgin flesh, " the 
Son of the Most High" " put on his" earthly " beauty." 
And in the true spirit of the festival, these messengers of 
salvation to a benighted land, instead of the ensigns of 
temporal dominion, set up " the sign of the Son of man," 
and reverently kneeling recited " the litanies of the Holy 
Cross !" 

Behold ! the royal standards fly. 
The Cross illumes our brightening sky ! 
That Cross where life did death endure. 
And by that death did life procure. 



14 

Fulfilled are now the mystic words, 
Which David's faithful song records : 
Proclaiming, all the earth should see 
God ruling nations from the tree. 

Oh glorious tree ! whose branches wore 
The royal purple of his gore! 
No other stem of worth like thine, 
To touch those mangled limbs divine ! 

Can you wonder at the sequel ? Can you wonder that 
He who had bid an Emperor " conquer in that" sacred 
" sign," should subdue the red-man's heart before it ? 
For the planters of Maryland did not open the chronicles 
of the chosen seed, to read there a fancied commission to 
themselves, to " cast out the heathen." They resorted 
to no speculations on the natural right of man to parce- 
nery of the globe, and their own consequent title to a 
corner of the Indian's hunting grounds. They were 
taught by men commissioned to " teach all nations," and 
who remembered their master's precept, " as you would 
that men should do unto you, do you also unto them in 
like manner.'' It is true that, as the sovereign Pontiffs, 
while kings admitted their paternal mediation in tempo- 
ral affairs, were fain to award their rights of conquest, 
according to their respective claims by discovery to pre- 
vent those sanguinary controversies between Christians 
which grow out of conflicting boundaries, the king of 
England had granted to the Calverts the exclusive privi- 
lege of colonizing Maryland ; but they knew that this 
could rightfully confer no more than rights of pre-emption, 
as against other Englishmen, and foreigners, who were 
bound, by the modern international system, to respect 
prerogative of the British crown; and they knew that 
justice and moderation would, at once, make such rights 
available to all the wants of Europe, and a source of in- 
estimable blessings to the Aborigines. 



15 

J3old in honesty and benevolence, Governor Calvert, 
accordingly, left his wooden walls ; and in two boats, 
with a slender retinue, sought an interview with the Chief 
of Piscattoway, who ruled, with a species of imperial 
sway, over the surrounding tribes. To the request for 
permission to settle in his territory, the princely savage 
is reported to have returned an answer, in the cautious 
style of the most accomplished diplomacy. But it is cer- 
tain that there was no deficiency of confidence or cour- 
tesy ; for, undeterred by the fate of the king of Patowo- 
mehe, kidnapped but a few years previous, he entered the 
boat of the strangers, lent a willing ear to their friendly 
professions, and dismissed them with assurances of amity. 
But while the adventurers were thus, in accordance 
with the divine monition, '* seeking first the kingdom of 
God and his justice," his providence was preparing for 
them all those things for which men are usually " solici- 
tous." A pacific tribe, who occupied a sweet sequestered 
region near the coniiuence of the Potomac with the bay, 
had been harassed by the fierce warriors from the Sus- 
quehannah, and were on the eve of a removal to a dis- 
tance from their enemies. Among these Governor Cal- 
vert sought a shelter, and with them he contracted for 
the purchase of their dwellings and their land. 

But do not your bosoms sicken at the bare name of a 
contract with Indians ? Does it not recal the long pro- 
tracted and not yet ended struggle between strong civi- 
lized cupidity and savage helplessness ? Does it not re- 
mind you of the beads, the bells, the knives, the looking 
glasses, the fire-arms and worse — ^the liquid fire — which, 
even before it bought the poor Indian's land, burnt him 
out from his home, and wrapped his soul in blacker ruin 
than tracks the flame that sweeps the prairie or blasts 
the forest ? 



16 

Perhaps it will not here ; for I am speaking to the chil- 
dren of Penn. I tell my seemingly romantic story where 
the Quaker's drab coat was better armor of proof against 
the Indian's arrow, than would have been the jointed 
mail of the age of chivalry ! In the intercourse of the 
Calvert s with the red men, was realized the prophetic 
exclamation of the psalmist, again to be illustrated in af- 
ter years in Pennsylvania, " Mercy and Truth are met 
together. Justice and Peace have kissed." Difficult as it 
might be to adjust with fractional accuracy the terms of 
an agreement, whereby one party consented to retire a 
little way into the boundless forest, and the other pre- 
sented a faw surplus products of Europe's industry, still 
the essential principles of rectitude were inflexibly ad- 
hered to. The Indian freely ceded his corn-field, which 
he could no longer retain ; but the white man supplied him 
with the implements to clear another ; and, with the axe 
and hoe, laid the basis of his civilization, and with it of all 
that renders life a blessing — property and order, and 
equal laws, and the dear delights of home and social in- 
tercourse, to be followed by artificial comforts and letters 
and refinement. Could the great Father of all look 
down on a lovelier scene than the fraternal union of his 
children of either hemisphere, during their joint sojourn 
in the simple huts of Yaocomico ? Behold the lithe hun- 
ters of the west leading forth their European guests to 
the chase or the fishery, and \\'\i\\ good-humored merri- 
ment instructing their awkward ignorance in wood-craft 
— while their " dusky loves" at home are initiated in the 
mysteries of the needle and loom, or teach the fair 
daughters of Albion to prepare the maize — that unfailing 
bread of independence and freedom ! 

What caused this unprecedented harmony? Why 
was not rather our feeble colony cut off by a sudden on- 



17 

slaught, as the first settlements of Virginia had been 
again and again ? Why were not the first houses in 
Maryland built like those monuments of olden manners 
I have seen in New England — with upper stories project- 
ing for the convenience of firing through the floor, on the 
savages attempting to break in ? 

The red men of British America were one and the 
same people — slightly modified by the circumstances of 
the different tribes, but probably far less diversified than 
the nations of Europe. I do not undertake to speak with 
ethnographical precision, on a point of archseology I have 
not studied. But common notoriety will sustain my po- 
sition, that their leading characteristics were the same, 
from the Pequod to the Catawba. Whatever their ha- 
bits of peace, their wars were bloody, vindictive and 
treacherous. Revenge was, with them, not merely an ani- 
mal instinct, but its gratification the conventional point 
of honor, no less than with the modern duelhst : and they 
differed, on its consummation, but in this, that the savage 
displayed his enemy^s gory scalp upon his breast — while 
the civilized murderer hides the ghastly features seared 
forever on his heart ! 

Still, man is essentially the same; whether bronzed by 
a tropical sun, or blanched in the polar wind. " Prick 
him, and he bleeds ! Tickle him, he laughs !" Be true 
to him, he loves and trusts you ! Wrong him, he will re- 
venge if he can ! None so fond, so confiding, so endur- 
ing, but may be estranged by systematic perversity. No 
heart so hard, but, at the touch of kindness, will gush 
forth in tenderness, like the rock in Horeb beneath the 
prophet's wand, and gloze as pretended moralists or 
time-serving statesmen may, on the Indian's irrecovera- 
ble savageness ; too truly might he recount his melan- 
choly tale, to most of us, in the words of Shakespeare's 

3 



18 



wild but just conception of the grossest specimen of our 
fallen nature — 



This land is mine ! ■ ■ 

" Which thou takest from me. When thou camest first, 

" Thou stroaked'st me, and madest much of me ; would'stgive me 

" Water with berries in 't; and teach me how 

•' To name the bigger light, and how the less, 

" That burn by day and night: and then I loved thee, 

•' And shewed thee all the qualities o' th' isle, 

" The fresh springs, brine pits, barren place and fertile." 

The planters of Maryland, at least, gave him no cause 
to add, " cursed be I that I did so !" 

For their principles seem to have taken so deep a hold 
in her soil, that none of growth less holy could ever root 
them out. Even in long after years, when the necessi- 
ties or convenience of a rapidly increasing white popu- 
lation, giving semblance of sanction to that grasping 
spirit, which is ever ready to mis-interpret the demands 
of a majority as the dictates of justice, pressed hard on 
the lingering families of the Aborigines, who were fast 
disappearing through the ravages of their mutual wars, 
and under the influence of very different institutions from 
those which guided the early settlers — still the original 
precedent was not forgotten. The records of the land- 
office and the Acts of Assembly abound in provisions for 
the protection of their reserves, and the payment of their 
annuities. The Proprietary's rights of pre-emption were 
guarded by legislation, which was especially conserva- 
tive, in its operation, of the native title; and it was no 
vain flourish of State pride, that led a most estimable and 
well-informed annallist* to affirm, that " in no instance 
did the Government take from the Aborigines an acre of 



* David Ridgely, Esq. See " Annals of Annapolis," an unpretending but 
most interesting little work. 



19 

land without a recompense perfectly satisfactory to 
them/' 

But there are duties from a stronger to a weaker race, 
thus thrown by Providence into juxta-position with it, 
other than those which regard the mere occupancy of the 
soil. 

There may be a serfage more hideous than unqualified 
bondage — as appears from the misery which gnaws the 
Hindoo to-day to sell his child to slavery, that the pur- 
chaser may snatch it from the vulture^beak of famine. 
Sovereigns often sin no less through what they omit than 
by what they do. And the vote-hunting statesman, who, 
in the name of public peace and protection, abandons the 
red man to individual craft or oppression, is as guilty of 
the ruin that silently, but surely, eats into his vitals, as 
though he had cut off the race, like the Pequods or the 
Narragansetts, at a single blow ! 

I have long been deeply impressed by the political wis- 
dom and sound philanthropy, that inspired the following 
remarks, which, to give emphasis to their intrinsic autho- 
rity, I will read to you from the sacred characters, 
traced, at a very early period in our national history, by 
the hand of Washington : 

" Purchase, if possible, as much land of them, (the In- 
dians) immediately back of us, as would make one or two 
States, according to the extent Congress design, or would 
wish to have them of: and which may be fully adequate 
to all our present purposes. Fix such a price upon the 
land so purchased as would not be too exorbitant or bur- 
thensome for real occupiers, but high enough to discou- 
rage monopolizers. Declare all steps heretofore taken to 
procure lands on the north-west side of the Ohio, con- 
trary to the prohibition of Congress, to be null and void : 
and that any person thereafter, who shall presume to 



20 

mark, survey, or settle lands, beyond the limits of the 
new States and purchased lands, shall not only be consi- 
dered as outlaws, but fit subjects for Indian vengeance."* 

The sentiments of the great and good are the same in 
every age ; and these wise and generous'principles of "the 
Father of his country," throbbed high in the bosoms of 
the founders of Maryland. For although, in their case, 
the fiend of savage warfare was not yet roused, which, 
since they passed from earth, has almost incessantly 
yelled on the van of Anglo-American population, in its 
westward march, their humane and just legislation sup- 
plied the rule and its sanction from within. It not only 
protected the native possessions, as I have already men- 
tioned, but it restricted trade with the Indians to persons 
duly licensed ; it prohibited the traffic in that fearful ele- 
ment of mutual destruction, which, invented by the ge- 
nius of a monk, was concealed from the world by his 
charity ; and it made the kidnapping of an Indian felony 
punishable by death. 

And even the wars in which themselves, and their suc- 
cessors long subsequently, sometimes became involved 
with the natives, through the faults of their neighbors, 
were characterized by the same humanity, which regard- 
ed the red man as an erring and neglected brother, enti- 
tled to the protection of the laws of God and of nations, 
not a beast of prey to be extirminated without mercy. 

Yes ! they stretched forth a strong hand to their weak 
brethren of the waste ; but, whether it were to cherish or 
restrain, it was ever in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 
For the spirit of their Exodus did not evaporate with 
their own arrival at the land of promise. They could 
truly say, in the inspired language of the Roman poet, — 



Unpublished letter from Gen. Washington to the Hon. Jacob Read, 1784. 



21 

" we are men ! nothing which affects mankind but is our 
concern." And no sooner had they acquired religious 
freedom for themselves, than their zeal overflowed for the 
salvation of the red man. You may see the early history of 
New England illustrated, in your children's school books, 
by the picture of a soldier standing guard at the door of 
the meeting house, over the stacked arms of his fellow 
worshippers within. The annals of Maryland display the 
warriors of the East and West kneeling in peace togeth- 
er around the glad altars of their common God. There 
is nothing fuller of exciting interest, to one who loves 
" the beauty of His House," than the unaffected details 
of the first missionaries of Maryland, gathered from the 
archives of the Society of Jesus at Rome. They breathe 
the fervor of that eventful day, when the heart-stricken 
converts of Jerusalem exclaimed "to Peter and the rest," 
"what shall we do, men and brethren ?" They carry us 
back to that scarce less interesting era, when Ireland's 
great Apostle enlisted, from the fierce warriors of Tara, 
the first of that glorious army of saints and martyrs, 
who through ages have triumphed over every hideous de- 
vice of tyranny exerted for the subversion of their faith, 
and borne their victorious standard, side by side with 
England's blood-stained banner, to every region of the 
habitable globe, which, like all-conquering pagan Rome, 
she is but preparing for the eventual dominion of the 
Cross. 

In those artless manuscripts, you may almost hear the 
murmured complaints of the ardent fathers, to their gene- 
ral, against the timid caution of the rulers of the pro- 
vince, which kept them back from their dangerous labors 
of love, while the intrigues of Clayborne had excited the 
natives to momentary jealousy. 

You may follow them, at a later period through toil- 



22- 

some and perilous expeditions, when often, like their 
Master, they had " not where to lay their head," save 
beneath the canopy of heaven, and their choicest " meat 
like his, was to do the will of Elim that sent them, that 
they might perfect his work." They waited not for the 
march of armies to *' make straight the way of the 
Lord." They loitered not under the shelter of the can- 
non, till the progress of civilization should prepare the 
heathen for the secure appeals of the press. Themselves 
were pioneers of improvement — like the bee that gathers 
her honeyed harvest of the wilderness, in advance of the 
white man. They preached the awful mysteries of Cal- 
vary with the crucifix. They told the wondrous story of 
God's dealings with man by sacred pictures. They 
spoke from heart to heart, the universal dialect of kindly 
looks and actions. They proved their doctrine by the 
unanswerable argument of their own disinterestedness 
and mortification. 

Brief alas ! was the term of their unrestricted labors ; 
but while it lasted the Land of Mary renewed those 
blissful scenes which, for eighteen centuries, have every 
where illustrated the fidelity of those whom the Master 
sends into his vineyard. Fainting with the heats, and 
often called to weep over some beloved associate, who 
had sunk under the burthen of the day, they had their 
consolation when princes and people embraced the Chris- 
tian name, and attested their spiritual regeneration, by 
their altered lives. May I detain you, for a moment, 
with the conversion of Chitomachen, the Tayac or em- 
peror of Piscattoway ? Long had the generous barba- 
rian sighed for heavenly truth. Dreams had foreshadow- 
ed, to himself and his predecessor, the advent of the he- 
ralds of the Cross. He welcomes at last the long look- 
ed-for Father Vitus, lends a docile ear to his gentle ad- 



23 

monitions, renounces his previous excesses, and content- 
ed with a single wife, devotes himself to the science of 
salvation. It is easy to the willing mind. He convenes 
his people ; avows his belief in the God of the strangers ; 
abjures the errors of his education, and tramples the ob- 
jects of his former idolatry. They listen with approving 
murmurs, and every pulse beats quick with anxious ex- 
pectation. But he must see Christianity under a more 
endearing aspect, ere his heart may bound to her mater- 
nal embrace. He visits the capital of the province, and 
finds there an Indian murderer condemned to die. The 
wretched victim of a harsh but necessary policy, sits 
gloomy in his prison, meditating the death-song, which 
shall soon nerve and manifest the stern energies of his 
soul, amid the horrors of the last dread struggle ! But 
the priest is kneeling beside him, with the tear of earthly 
pity and the balm of eternal hope. The royal catechu- 
men beholds, with raptured admiration, this new deve- 
lopment of the human heart — ^the love of enemies ! He 
catches the soft contagion — volunteers to interpret with 
the culprit — and adds the suggestions of his own strong 
sense to those of the clergyman. Their appeal is not in 
vain. The prisoner " departs in peace," a penitent 
Christian, expiating his crime against society, with hum- 
ble trust in the forgiveness of his Maker. 

Chitomachen hesitates no longer. He burns to lave 
his anxious brow in the cooling well-spring of life. But 
already he begins to feel the self-denying influences of 
that law of love, whose " sweet yoke" he is so eager to 
bear. He is willing, like the Apostle, to be separated, 
yet a little while, from Christ, " for his brethren accord- 
ing to the flesh." A chapel, where he may receive bap- 
tism with the most impressive solemnity, is erected, by 
his command, at his little capital of Kittamagundi ; and 



24 

savage art exhausts its simple resources, to deck its bar- 
ken walls with appropriate splendor. The spoils of the 
panther, the beaver, and the deer, supply the velvet drape- 
ry and cloth of gold of Fuirope's proud Cathedrals. The 
bird's bright plumage and the rich bloom of the wild- 
flower compensate for the painter's glowing tints, and the 
delicate foliage of the sculptor. Governor Calvert ar- 
rives with a retinue of honor ; and there, while the swar- 
thy multitude bend their dark eyes, in eager curiosity, on 
the mystic ceremonial, the chief and his partner, with their 
infant'ofl*spring, approach the regenerating fount, receiv- 
ing next that sacramental bond, by whose holy tie the 
Saviour himself has figured his own union with his elect, 
in the embrace of eternal love ! Again are exhibited the 
joyous solemnities of the first landing at St. Clement's, 
but no longer expressive of the white man's unshared 
hoped, for savage and citizen unite in fraternal exultation 
around the sacred emblem of the sacrifice for all. 

Such were the triumphs of the Cross in Maryland ; 
yet to many of us, 'tis pity ! they sound as strange as 
some half-accredited tale from a far-distant land. 

While the fame of Pocahontas brightens on our grate- 
ful hearts, from century to century, who tells of the ge- 
nerous docility of Archihu, the confiding hospitality of 
the Werowance of Patuxent, or the miraculous restora- 
tion of the speared Anacostian ?* Well may poetry and 
eloquence weave their fairest chaplets for the sweet child 
of Powhattan ; proud may they justly be whose veins can 
boast a tinge of the rich red blood she freely perilled for 
the preservation of Smith and of Jamestown; but ought 



* The sudden restoration of this man, who had been transpierced with a 
spear, from side to side, about a hand's breadth below the armpits, on his be- 
ing touched by the relics of the true cross is told in the manuscript alluded to 
in the text. 



25 

we to forget that she was brought by kidnappers to the 
saving rite commemorated on tlic walls of the Capitol, 
while the royal progeny of the Maryland forest were 
freely sent to St. Mary's, to learn their catechism — "that 
alphabet of divine philosophy." 

Yes ! my hearers, the partial sculpture of our national 
halls, false as Grecian fable without her redeeming inspi- 
ration, displays the storm-tossed Puritans, at the rock 
of Plymouth, exchanging tokens of amity with the friendly 
savage, whom " their" own " early records incontestably 
" prove them to have attacked without provocation !"* 
though the horrid truth is told, in Boon's death-grapple? 
which emblems the planting of the west ! But why has 
the pacific, the Christian settlement of Maryland no me- 
morial there, but a simple bust of Calvert ? — 

Yet deeply as humanity is indebted to the founders of 
that time-honored community, in respect of that endearing 
interest the injured Aborigines of America, it might al- 
most be doubted whether, on the still vaster concern of 
civil liberty, she is not more so. Next in importance to 
the vital question, " what shall we do to be saved," are 
those which regard the organization of society during 
our earthly sojourn. Long on these has despairing phi- 
losophy argued against fact. Long have the irrepressi- 
ble energies of nature struggled upward against prescrip- 
tive oppression, like undying vegetation bursting into 
light and air, through the marbled courts of kings. The 
flaring torch-light of Greek and Roman liberty had, in- 
deed, gone out in the tempest of faction, but the cheering 
ray of San Marino's little lamp still streamed from her 
mountain cross, through the night of ages, a pole star of 
hope and freedom ; and when at last this vast continent 

* Grimshaw's History United States, page 47. 

4 



26 

was thrown open to man, as a field where, unincumbered 
with the forms of old establishments, he might try, per- 
haps, his last great experiment of self-government, many 
a broken heart poured forth toward heaven its agonizing 
orisons for his success ! 

Vain were it to deny that in the judgment of many, it 
has lamentably failed. For one, I still hope in the recu- 
perative energy of principle over selfishness ; for what 
but selfishness running riot under systems of morality, in 
which each individual is his own law-giver and judge, is 
the source of corporate plunder, official defalcation, pub- 
lic and private bankruptcy, rampant violence, and the 
time-serving cowardice that shrinks from the mainte- 
nance of political faith and the enforcement of social 
order ? 

Let them who, disheartened by our recent disgraceful 
experience, are tempted to renounce their trust in repub- 
lican institutions, go in spirit with me to the old State 
House at St. Mary's, and learn there the true nature of 
democracy — the only democracy to be trusted or desired 
—the collective wisdom and virtue of a religious people. 
They will find there every freeman of the province pre- 
sent in person or by proxy — " cavilling on the ninth part 
of a hair," where his chartered rights are touched, but 
true to his reciprocal obligations as if he were surround- 
ed by armies and police. He respects prerogative — he 
resists its encroachments. He pays his quit-rents — he 
pays his taxes — he watches with dragon vigilance the 
Proprietary's application of appropriations for public ser- 
vice ; and he is prodigal, in substantial testimonials of 
gratitude, " for his Lordship's great charge and solici- 
" tude in maintaining the government, and protecting the 
" inhabitants in their persons, rights, and liberties."* 

* Act of 1611, ch. 5. 



27 

No human institution, my friends, however skillfully 
constructed, can stand by its own strength, and he who 
blindly resolves his whole political faith into " the voice 
of the people," will soon find himself as insecure in per- 
son and in property as the victim of the courtly doctrine 
of " divine right." " Fear God : honor the Kinjj !" On 
those inspired precepts hang all the statesman's law. 
And while the latter must be understood to comprehend 
whatever form of magistracy the national sovereignty 
may, for the time, put on, it is only by adhering with fide- 
hty, like the planters of Maryland, to those unchange- 
able institutions to which we are referred by the former, 
that we can preserve individual ability to surmount those 
temptations, whose general predominance is but another 
name for national degradation. 

But how shall I approach that last great argument, 
which immortalizes them whom we come here to honor 
— compared with which their other merits fjide from view 
like the starry host of heaven paled by the glance of day? 
Monuments, and festivals, and laurelled wreaths, and 
every demonstration of their country's love and gratitude, 
to the Washingtons, the Wallaces, the Tells, the Boli- 
vars, who broke the chains of political thraldom ! But 
" glory to God in the highest," and praise, and blessing, 
and adoration, and thanksgiving, for the grace that 
breathed his peace into these " men of good will," who 
gently loosed the fetters of the soul, and measurably re- 
stored His honor, whose acceptable worship can only be 
the voluntary homage of the understanding and the heart! 

Who and what were these unexampled people, who 
would suffer no believer in Jesus to be molested on ac- 
count of his religion ; who opened their homes and their 
hearts alike to the victim of Puritan persecution and the 
Puritan martyr ; tolerating, beneath their halcyon rule, 



28 

every thing but what was then universally considered 
unquestionable blasphemy and " railing for railing?" 

Were they philosophers of that easy school, which 
masks its own indifference or hostility to God's eternal 
truth, by affected liberality towards every opinion of the 
hour ? Let the world produce examples of men who had 
proved, by sterner tests, their unyielding tenacity to con- 
scientious convictions ! Nay rather, (advanced as they 
w^ere, before their cotemporaries, in that confidence in 
truth which never doubts of its peaceful triumph over er- 
ror) would that they had not somewhat exceeded in their 
zeal, and, in respect of doctrines whose professors, 
though scarce amounting to a sect in their day, are now 
eminent among our separated brethren, for the consist- 
ency of their reasoning and purity of their lives, not 
reached forth the rash hand of flesh to stay the leaning 
ark of Jehovah, as secure on the necks of the restive 
oxen, as reposing in " the holiest place," under the gol- 
den wings of the cherubim ! 

Were they Fortune's " happy winners," who only in- 
dulged in a pleasing emotion of our nature, by communi- 
cating to others their own satisfaction ? Alas ! they had 
been formed by adversity's rudest nurture — 

"What sorrow was she bade them know, 

" And from their own they learned to melt at others' woe !" 

Their God-like charity involved not merely pity but for- 
giveness; but with the thought of their own injuries 
came back to their hearts the prayer of their dying Sa- 
viour — " Father, forgive them, for they know not what 
they do !" 

Without a fault, they might have borrowed the cau- 
tion of other communities, which sought, by excluding 
innovation, to preserve their own tranquillity ; while the 
rest of Christendom went to wreck in the fierce war of 



29 

opposing doctrine. Had not themselves but just escaped 
its fury ; and might they not, unblamed, have said to 
their separated brother, hke the prudent " father of the 
faithful," " Let there be no quarrel between me and thee! 
behold, the whole land is before thee !" 

Ought they not then to have foreseen and avoided the 
cruel consequences which followed so soon their facile 
hospitality? My friends, the believer looks"to principles, 
not results. He does what conscience dictates, and 
leaves the rest to God. But had these peaceful rulers, 
instead of promptly yielding to their generous impulse, 
set down to a cold calculation of the ultimate effects of 
their policy, all history had confined to them the instinc- 
tive teaching of their own true hearts. For what are all 
these revolutions of temporal power — what all these de- 
velopments, from age to age, of the varying resources of 
human ingenuity, and the temporary ascendancy of hu- 
man will, but so many manifestations by the Most High, 
to the reflecting mind, of the unchangeable nature of his 
purposes—" fire, hail, snow, ice, stormy winds which ful- 
fil his word ?" 

In this mighty ministry, the planters of Maryland had 
their office too. For though their work was not to 
stand throughout their own brief day, they were to enrich 
the world with the imperishable monument of their ex- 
ample. Nor can American patriotism devise a holier or 
more salutary rite, than that in which, on this occasion, 
I am its unworthy representative. When blind creduHty 
yields to the guidance of ignorance, interest, or prejudice 
— when once proud Massachusetts waits for the weeping 
heavens to wash from Mount Benedict the black record 
of her shame — when manly worth combines with female 
tenderness, in the name of Truth and Liberty, to close 
the hand of Pity against the shrinking Catholic orphan ; 



30 

to shut out from the blessed beams of pubhc education 
the child of the Catholic artisan or laborer, who will not 
consent to quench in its soul what he deems " the bright- 
ness of the light eternal ;" to withhold " the leave to toil" 
from the honest Catholic waiter, or the poor Irish girl, 
whose infantile purity — the emerald crown of her devo- 
tion to the " Queen of virgins" — might sometimes be 
" as the lamp shining on the holy candlestick,"* to the 
giddy foot of Fashion's gay votaress whom she sues to 
serve, unless they will consent to earn " the meat that 
perisheth," by renouncing what they'^ believe " the living 
bread which came down from Heaven" — then the aching 
heart can wing its weary way to the peaceful plain of old 
St. Mary's ! There, still, in our land, the tired dove 
can rest upon the olive ! There Christians of every 
creed can still meet in love and harmony like children of 
the same kind and impartial Father ! for there the very 
air is redolent of the good odor of their lives, as of the 
fragrance of the sweet wild mint, that wraps the humble 
graves of the Pilgrims of Maryland ! 

A. M. D. G. 

* Ecclesiasticus xxvi, v. 22. 






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